Sometimes goats will fight each other, and the fighting can get pretty intense. This is usually all for rank within the herd, but it can definitely look like the goats are going to murder each other.
Goats that are fighting over rank usually will not kill each other. The goats usually have no interest in killing one another so much as they want to assert dominance. However, if a fight looks like it could leave one of your goats injured it’s a good idea to move one of them to another pen.
Most of the time infighting among your goats isn’t much to worry about. While goats can end up injuring each other pretty badly, I have never heard of a goat killing another goat in a fight.
Why Do Goats Fight?
Goats fight in order to determine their hierarchy. Goats respect only strength, and so whatever goat is the best at fighting will usually end up dominant over the others.
This behavior is inevitable within the herd. Goats male and female want to know where they belong in their social hierarchy, so it is only natural for them to butt heads every once in a while.
It also isn’t strange for unrelated goats to join in on fights in hopes that the goat they are helping will support them in the future. All this is part of the natural internal politics of a goat herd.
Fortunately, goats have yet to be introduced to the works of Machiaveli. Once a goat is in power, they retain that power by continuing to be the strongest goat in the herd. No matter how strong the other goats get, the leaders usually won’t murder potential rivals.
In the wild, these rivals may end up expelled from the herd, but in captivity they will usually just eventually lose their position after being bested in one on one combat.
It is also common for mother goats to attack other goats in their herd that come close to their young children. This isn’t really political, but it is totally fine and there isn’t anything that you need to do about it.
Goats will also sometimes fight over food or water, but as long as you have enough space where you feed them and enough food for all of them the fighting should be both minimal and harmless.
Should You Do Anything About Your Goats Fighting?
The real question is: Can you do anything about goats fighting each other? The answer is really no.
As mentioned before, if things get too scary you can move one of the goats away for a little while and this may de-escelate things. However, as soon as the goats are together again they will start the fight right back up.
Fortunately, there usually isn’t any need for you to do anything about fighting goats. Goats are a warrior race who are built for combat. As such they are fairly resilient creatures who can take a bit of a beating.
It is usually a good idea to keep bucks away from does and kids though, since bucks can be fairly violent even toward very young goats, and this can be quite dangerous for the young ones.
Other than that, there is very little that needs doing when it comes to goat fights. They are mostly harmless. There are, however other ways that goats can present a danger to one another.
New Goats Can Spread Disease
When introducing new goats into your herd you may expect the biggest danger to be to the new goat, who is bound to end up in so many fights with the other goats in the herd.
However, the most risk is actually to the other herd, as the new goat can actually end up introducing new diseases into the herd that they don’t yet have resistences to. These diseases have been known to wipe out entire herds in the past, making them something that you definitely want to avoid.
In order to prevent this from being a problem, you should quarantine any new goats that you plan to introduce into your herd for a while before bringing them into the pen with the others.
These diseases are usually communicable between sheep and goats, which makes it all the more important that you quarantine new goats before bringing them into your herds.
Even if you know where the goat came from and the goat doesn’t seem to have been sick, you still need to quarantine it since the stress of joining a new herd can be so much that the goat’s immune system weakens, allowing dangerous germs that were already in it to become contagious and make the herd sick.
The minimum amount of time that you should quarentine new goats is thirty days, but if you’re especially nervous about infecting your goats you can wait longer.
What Else Can Kill Goats?
There are plenty of predators that can kill and eat goats. Depending on where you live, coyotes, wolves, wild dogs, and even foxes will sometimes try to eat goats.
You probably have a plan to deal with predators though. Maybe you have a guard dog or a llama. However, goats can also accidentally poison themselves in a lot of situations.
If you feed them foods like avocados, choclate, or potatoes they could get sick or even die.
Goats will also sometimes eat things that are not meant for their consumption, like nails or other bits of hardware this can easily make the goat sick and even lead to their ultimate demise if it isn’t taken care of.
If you live anywhere in North America east of New Mexico and South of Toronto you also need to look out for blister beetles. These little buggy boys are incredibly deadly to goats, and just eating one can be enough to kill an adult goat.
Insecticides, herbicides, and rat poison can also be extremely toxic to goats. If you have pests that you need to deal with and you also have goats, it might be a good idea to avoid using chemicals to deal the with problem to avoid poisoning your goats on accident.
If your goats do exhibit symptoms of poisoning, you should contact a veterinarian immediately.
